


Telling Friend From Foe

by poisontaster



Series: Dogs of War [2]
Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-29
Updated: 2008-03-29
Packaged: 2018-02-14 07:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2182494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec gets back after a two-day recon and all he wants to do is sleep. Set vaguely post-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Telling Friend From Foe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mickeym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickeym/gifts).



> She asked for _Alec/Joshua, a quiet night in._

Alec gets back after a two-day recon and all he wants to do is sleep.

The siege of Terminal City continues undeterred. If anything, it seems like both sides are settling in, getting comfortable. There's been rumors that the President is getting personally involved, planning to send out a negotiator, but if that's true, Alec doesn't know anything about it.

Of course, if it's true, it doesn't surprise him that Max wouldn't tell him anything about it.

That thought's less bitter than it would've been; he must be more tired than he thought. And there lies the problem.

He supposes he could go to the tall, clapboard house Joshua's appropriated for himself. It's not unlike the house Joshua was occupying on the other side of the line, dilapidated and peeling. But first of all, Joshua's had four other transgenics with him when Alec left and that was two days ago. Who knew how many he'd added since then, and Alec didn't feel like facing the crowd, facing the thin, subvocal level of weirdness that an X-series would shack up with an anomaly. Not that they're shacked up.

It's not that he's ashamed. Oh, hell, no. Alec's way past any idea of shame and he'll knock the face off anybody who tries to tell him otherwise. But tensions are already at a premium and it's one thing to…to…

…to make a mutual beneficial pact of physical satisfaction and it's another to let the whole world know that Alec McDowell is, that he's been…

The point is, they're not shacked up. Alec is not a domesticated cat.

But on the other side of the coin, he's been in and out of TC enough that he really doesn't have a place of his own, catching catnaps (ha!) in corners where he could, when he's not faceplanting in Joshua's bed after really awesome—and athletic, even for them—sex.

_Ah, fuck it,_ he thinks, edgy and uneasy with all this back and forth. Though the lure of the thick, warm nest of eggcrates and blankets atop a sprung mattress that Joshua calls a bed is strong, Alec doesn't want to get into the habit of calling that home. He doesn't have a home. No point and getting soft and soppy about something that doesn't belong to him.

After he reports in to Max—and what a clusterfuck of epic proportions that is; she still hasn't forgiven him for the whole Joshua thing—he's feeling a little lightheaded anyway. He tries to think of the last time he concretely remembers eating something, and can't. But he's too exhausted to even chew, so he decides: sleep first, everything else later.

Max graciously gives him the rest of the day off and Alec staggers off, not quite steadily, off to one of the upper catwalk aeries of their central activity hub. The lower levels are chockablock with transgenics; even the ones that weren't bred for it seem to seek it out instinctively, more residue of dear old Mother Manticore. And it's warmer down there, good for the little ones, who get cold so easy.

He doesn't really have anything and the corner he chooses has been picked clean of pretty much everything useful, so Alec pillows his head on his arm as best he can and trusts tiredness and training to slick the way down into sleep.

He is not disappointed.

He doesn't know how much later it is that he wakes. A jerk, a bitten off curse as he rips his way free of dreams—never good. It can't have been long; sunlight still smudges the walls and fragged machinery from the chinks in the roof. He's warmer than when he went to sleep, though, curled back into…something and easier, looser in his skin than when he went to sleep.

And then his mind uncoils the random hum he thought was machinery as the rumble of Joshua's breath, identifies the shape he's fitted into as Joshua's, long and solid and familiar. It bothers him he didn't wake up, didn't know that someone else was there, wrapped around him. The thought that he might be losing his edge…

Except he's not losing his edge. He can't be. He's just smart enough to know friend from foe, even when asleep.

Yes.

"Alec didn't come to the house, like the plan." It's not a rebuke, exactly. Joshua doesn't seem to go in for that kind of thing, expecting the burden of guilt to be its own punishment. Alec could've told him that guilt is another emotion that Manticor x'ed out of his gene pool.

Alec tries to turn over, to face Joshua, so he can gauge his expression, tell which smile to use, which dazzlingly plausible lie, but Joshua's hand creeps over Alec's side, holding him pressed where he is. "I was fried, man," Alec says, not entirely a lie. He ignores the unsteadiness in his voice as he says it; it makes him sound more convincing, he thinks.

The snort Joshua makes against the back of Alec's head is indefinable, but the way Joshua's hand creeps under the layers of Alec's shirts to rub his belly is more definitive. Even so, Alec sort of wishes he could see Joshua's face.

"So I came to find Alec." The words are said simply, directly—which is pretty much Joshua in a nutshell. Even so, Alec feels some taut wire in his neck and back that he wasn't even aware of, coil loose, ramping him down from whatever argument he half-expected. He's not used to not having to fight for things. For everything.

"I—okay." He doesn't know what else to say to Joshua's declaration, straightforwardness like an unfamiliar weapon in his hands. He supposes he'll figure out what to do with it sooner or later. He's Manticore, he always does.

Joshua—who already feels like he completely encircles Alec—stretches a little more, knees locking in behind Alec's, his hand searching upward until it circles lightly over Alec's pectoral. Over his heart. It feels good enough that Alec wants to squirm, aware of Joshua's cock right there, half-hard in the cleft of his ass. Good enough that he does give a purposeful little shimmy of his hips, questioning. Sex, okay. Sex he understands.

"Not now." Now that _is_ a rebuke, no matter how quietly Joshua says it. Alec doesn't know if he should feel disappointed or not. It would make sense to him if Joshua had come up here to get his surfboard waxed. But if he hadn't come up for that…what the hell had he come up her for? "You and me…sleep now. Later for gettin' busy. When Alec not so tired." Joshua snuffles Alec's hair and his hand tightens a little on Alec's chest. "I like sleepy Alec."

"Alec likes sleep," he answers and feels a little shock at how soft and wasted his voice sounds, rather than the peppy, snarky way he meant for it to come out. His eyelids even feel heavy.

"I like all of Alec," Joshua says pointedly, pulling Alec back the last few millimeters, until Alec's head is pillowed on Joshua's arm instead of his own. "This would be better in Joshua and Alec's bed."

That opens Alec's eyes in a hurry, the sudden slam of his heart hard enough that he's convinced Joshua will feel it. "Aw, that's your place, Josh…"

Joshua growls. It's a quiet thing that Alec mostly feels in the vibration of Josh's chest against his back, but there's no mistaking it. More pointed—pretty literally—is the dig of Joshua's claw-tips into Alec's skin. Like when Joshua bites the nape of Alec's neck, it stills him, leaves nothing but the white noise of waiting in his head.

Joshua doesn't say anything. Just that growl, rumbling on and on, penetrating Alec's nerves and demanding a response. Demanding an answer.

"Okay," Alec relents finally. He's too tired for this. "Okay. Next time we'll do this in…in a bed."

The growl stops. Joshua twists and nips Alec sharply on the ear, teasing and pointed. "Later," Joshua prompts.

Alec sighs. "Later," he agrees.

Joshua hums and nuzzles the back of Alec's ear. "Sleep, little fella."

_Little fella._ Alec's only ever heard Joshua call Max that, a term of special endearment. It feels strange to hear it applied to him, though he supposes everyone's a little fella to Joshua. Weird…but he thinks he can live with it.

Alec closes his eyes and leans back, halfway to sleep already.  



End file.
